Kaff Gerrard   1894 - 1970 

Born Katherine Leigh-Pemberton, Kaff Gerrard was a British artist whose work (across various mediums) has only been highlighted in the decades following her death. Scarcely known or shown during her lifetime, Gerrard’s early career was nonetheless promising. A student of the Slade School of Art in the early 1920s, she received numerous honours including first prizes for painting from the cast and portraiture and a prize for life painting. It was at the Slade that she met her future husband, A.H. Gerrard, a sculptor who would later head the Slade’s sculpture department.

Based initially in Kent, Gerrard sought inspiration from the land and seascapes of the South Downs. In the Second World War she painted scenes of downed bombers strewn about local fields and farmsteads, some of which are now housed in the Imperial War Museum. Her broad brushwork and palette of lilacs, violets, blues and greens adapted well to landscapes, still lives and spiritual paintings with symbols drawn from Christian theology. Her only lifetime exhibition was shared with her husband at Colnaghi’s, London, in 1931 and showcased her pottery and sculpture. Since the early 1990s her work has been widely reappraised and is now held in numerous national collections, including the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, the Tate in London, and the Government Art Collection.

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